FPL customers will still get refunds for 2008 outage

The state's Public Service Commission on Tuesday rejected Florida's Power & Light's request to rethink a $13.9 million refund the utility was directed to provide to customers.

The refund will offset fuel costs for customers this year by about 14 cents a month for those who use 1,000 kilowatts hours.

The refund was for costs related to a 2008 outage that left as many as 3 million Floridians without electricity. The outage lasted several hours and was blamed on an FPL engineer, whose actions accidentally triggered the blackout. The incident tripped off two nuclear units at the Turkey Point plant near Miami, as they are designed to do for safety reasons.

FPL Spokesman Mayco Villafana did not say whether the company would appeal the decision again in court, but said, "We're disappointed." He said if the PSC had subtracted costs for replacement power and fuel during the time the utility was making essential repairs not related to the outage, the refund amount would have been closer to $7.8 million.

Commissioners unanimously approved the refund last year. Consumer advocates asked that $15.9 million be refunded because customers had no control over the outage and they already pay for the high costs of nuclear plants, including profit margins utilities earn for them.